An experimental Ebola vaccine triggered signs of immune protection in the first 20 volunteers who tested it and thus appears safe, United States researchers reported yesterday (Wednesday, November 26).
The vaccine is designed to boost the immune system’s production of anti-Ebola antibodies and after being injected at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), volunteers developed them within four weeks without any serious side effects.
Scientists are racing to develop ways to prevent or treat the virus that has killed more than 5,600 people in West Africa, most of them in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.